Stream It Or Skip It: ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’ on Hulu, a Far Smarter-Than-Average Culture-Clash Rom-Com

What’s Love Got to Do with It? (now streaming on Hulu) aims to be a different kind of rom-com. First off: It’s labeled a “romantic comedy” but it isn’t particularly funny – except for Emma Thompson, who’s always, always a hoot. No, it’s more of a light drama, starring Lily James as a perpetually single documentarian making a film about the “assisted marriage” – note we didn’t say “arranged” – of her childhood best friend, played by Shazad Latif. Do these lifelong pals secretly harbor romantic feelings for one another? I won’t answer that yet. But the notables behind the camera do their darnedest not to lean too heavily into any cliches of the scenario: Jemima Khan used her decade-long immersion in Pakistani culture while married to politician Imran Khan as inspiration to write a screenplay about the many inroads to love. And the film is director Shekhar Kapur’s first film since 2007’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Their aim seems to be subverting and embracing formula at the same time; let’s see if they succeed.

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The scene: London, an extravagant Pakistani wedding. Kaz’s (Latif) brother just got married, but he slips out of his parents’ home to hide in his old treehouse and smoke a cigarette. Zoe (James) soon joins him – they used to do this all the time, having grown up nextdoor neighbors and besties, but only besties. Totes platons. No kissing. Don’t protest too much! They’re 30ish now; he’s a doctor and she’s an award-winning documentary filmmaker who we see working 100 percent solo, without even a sound person or editor or lighting assistant or anything, which is kinda unrealistic, but nevermind, move along, move along. 

Zoe’s dating life is naught but a string of duds. And Kaz’s – well, he’s decided to forego the fall-in-love-first Western ideal and let his Pakistan-born parents choose his lifemate. His mom and dad didn’t meet until their wedding day, and look at them now, they’re kicking major ass. Not that he wholly subscribes to that old-fashioned extreme; he agrees to have an “assisted” marriage, a more modern riff on the tradition, which allows him to attend mixers and meet potential mates while fully accepting his family’s buttinskyisms. 

This, Zoe realizes, would make for a terrific documentary. Love, Contractually is her pitch, and her producers bite, so she starts following Kaz around and surely not feeling anything at all in the realm of romantic murmurs or burbles, nosirree, no freaking way, as he uses a Muslim “matrimonial advice bureau” led by a man who tongue-in-cheekily says he’s devoted to ending “the spinster crisis.” Meanwhile, Zoe babysits the two adorable daughters of a friend – who happens to be having some marital issues – and reads them her versions of fairy tales, where the princess thinks having a talking frog is way better than having a prince, and Cinderella doesn’t buy into the princely hype, etc. Metaphors, I tell you, metaphors!

Also meanwhile, Zoe’s mother Cath (Emma Thompson), a free-spirited and outspoken not-quite-airhead, would loooovvvveee to arrange a marriage for her daughter, so she does her damnedest to shove Zoe into the same room with the nice-guy veterinarian tasked with monitoring the contraband that routinely ends up inside her poncy little dog. Kaz agrees to marry the softspoken Maymouna (Sajal Ali) after a couple video chats, so Zoe and her camera follow him and his family to Pakistan for all the elaborate festivities. And this is the point where, if anyone is harboring anything, any urges or feelings, they may want to do something about it. Is anyone doing any of this, and if so, will they do anything about it? NO SPOILERS, but one imagines that something’s gotta give here, right?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Monsoon Wedding! And The Big Sick showed a similar clash of Eastern and Western cultures.

Performance Worth Watching: No one with even the slightest bit of cinema awareness will be the slightest bit surprised to learn that Emma Thompson steals about a half-dozen scenes by merely being Emma Thompson, who proves yet again to be extraordinarily adept at playing kooks who threaten to leap out of your screen and make you dance or try some weird new food or whatever. 

Memorable Dialogue: Kaz makes a good point when Zoe asks if his pending marriage was love at first sight: “Love at first anything is a mental health issue.”

Sex and Skin: Nothing more than a scene or two of aggressive smooching.

Our Take: This isn’t the stereotypical East-v-West culture-clash comedy that the cliche title What’s Love Got to Do with It? implies – it’s far more nuanced than that. Khan’s goal with her screenplay has less to do with fulfilling audience expectations for rom-com fodder, and more to do with reframing Western ideals about love and romance based on observations from her own life. Zoe and Kaz subtly “debate” their cultural values within finely tuned dialogue, and he makes compelling, pragmatic points that challenge the idea that lifelong partnerships must begin with heated, passionate love. His parents grew to love each other over decades, and therefore set an example for him of a strong, sturdy marriage. “You don’t have to start with love,” he says, “you end with love.” Then he points out that six percent of arranged marriages end in divorce. And what’s the stat for Western marriages? Way more than that.

Khan’s script wisely avoids passing judgment on anybody. There’s no right or wrong here, and both Zoe and Kaz question their own perspectives at times. They begin pondering what it means to be “in love,” or to “settle” for someone who’s simply “good enough,” and it’s clear that there’s something to learn from both points-of-view. Khan is herself a career documentary producer, and the hint of autobiography lends the movie enough real-life credibility to make it feel more like truth and less like a broad, calculated crowdpleaser.

However, the film genuflects enough toward formulaic norms, rendering its core structures predictable. It stops short of some rom-com tropes; despite Thompson’s OTT comic overtures, Khan never reduces any of her characters down to caricatures or joke factories. James and Latif don’t set the screen aflame with their unrealized yearnings, but those beefing about their lack of chemistry are missing the point: These characters grew up together, find their friendship in an odd limbo of sorts, and wonder if they should keep growing together. What’s Love’s entire emphasis is on finding a happy medium between differing philosophies, and it does so with the quiet, assured conviction that so many similar rom-coms lack.

Our Call: What’s Love Got to Do with It? is smarter and more insightful than other films of its ilk. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.